Sunday, April 10, 2016

I just got waved to from VR

This is one of those "the future is here" moments. The first 'tv show' transmitted from VR.

The Foo Show - Firewatch Tower Tour Episode

It's clunky, their arms don't move properly because the inverse kinematics forgot to include shoulders, and in terms of content - it's a bunch of people wandering around a small room looking intensely at every-day objects like teenagers on their first acid trip.

But it's also groundbreaking. Will's completely right about how little it takes before you anthropomorphise their chunky avatars into "real people". Ten minutes in and I forgot they were polygons.

And at the end, they wave goodbye. Such a simple, utterly human gesture. The first time anyone has waved to me from VR.

FooVR.com is in early days still. The resolution will improve, structured motion systems will replace the polygons with photogrammetry, the inverse kinematics will get better, and the "virtual sets" will evolve and explore the limits of what's visually possible.

But they got first post. And that's what matters.

I've been expectantly waiting for this day for over 20 years, and pushing the technology and art behind it. This concept is as old as Gibson's "Neuromancer", or Simmon's "Hyperion". Now it's real. We finally get to explore not just the idea, but it's consequences.